We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Natalia Chaves Larkin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Natalia below.

Natalia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Morpho Style Boutique is more than just a small business. Behind our business, there are amazing people, mainly women, which handcraft piece by piece all the products that we bring from Colombia. We work with a group of amazing entrepreneurs, crafters, artisans, artists, and passionate individuals wanting to strive for a better future. We have built a small community of this dream called “Morpho Style Boutique”. Morpho Style Boutique works with providers in three different cities of Colombia: Popayan, Cali, and Medellin; impacting at least 25 families, of which at least 20 of those families are low-income.

Our mission is “to provide our customers with unique and handcrafted products, supporting women heads of households and families in Colombia. We aim for perfection in our products and the service we provide.” We want that when our customers purchase our products, they take home more than “just an accessory”, but the story behind it… the long hours of work that took that artisan to handcraft it; the journey of bringing the products from Colombia; sharing through our products the culture and traditions of Colombia; representing our Latinidad; and most importantly, the impact that that purchase is making not only in our small business to enhance our local economy in the U.S. but also in our community back in Colombia.

We strive for perfection in our products, and in our eyes, that not only includes high-quality accessories with the best materials but also the responsibility of being an eco-friendly business. What is more perfect than nature? We feature eco-friendly jewelry with real recycled butterflies and flowers from Colombia, representing the biodiverse of Colombia and the perfection of nature. All butterflies are recycled through botanical gardens and farms in Colombia once the butterflies have completed their life cycle in a natural way. Our jewelry is the perfect way to preserve their beauty once they have passed in a natural way. Flowers are cultivated at our partner’s own garden and farm; they are carefully picked, preserved, and arranged into beautiful creations to be worn as jewelry. And, we also have a line of products that are handcrafted with fabric from recycled plastic bottles and with unique butterfly replicas.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Natalia, I am originally from Popayan, Colombia and with my husband Peyton, from Virginia, we started Morpho Style Boutique back in mid-2019. We started this small business with the idea of supporting women and artisans in Colombia and bringing handmade unique jewelry and accessories to our clients. We are located in San Antonio, TX and we have an online store, and we attend markets in different areas of San Antonio and Texas.

When we started with Morpho Style Boutique we were focused on selling our eco-friendly jewelry handcrafted with real butterfly wings and flowers from Colombia. We started a great partnership with Pistilo Eco-fashion, owned by two amazing women in Popayan, Colombia.

They have been working on this project for over 10 years and we decided to work with them to bring amazing eco-friendly products to the United States. As mentioned before, all butterflies are recycled through botanical gardens and farms in Colombia, once they have ended their life cycle in a natural way. NO butterflies are harmed in the making of this jewelry. We love butterflies and our eco-friendly jewelry is the perfect way to preserve their beauty once they have completed their life cycle in a natural way. Butterflies have an extremely short life cycle, they can only live a couple of weeks or months, depending on the species. Colombia has over 3,640 butterfly species, accounting for 20% of the butterflies in the world. Our butterfly jewelry is a way to keep them alive forever in our accessories.

We also have a line of products that are handcrafted with fabric from recycled plastic bottles and with unique butterfly replicas. We love eco-friendly and slow fashion. Our products are not only eco-friendly but also one-of-a-kind.
And our beaded jewelry and accessories are all handmade by mainly women heads of households, we have partnered with a couple of businesses, our main provider is AMITAI in Cali, Colombia and we are supporting over 20+ low-income families with this collection called “SUEÑOS Collection”. With our SUEÑOS collection, we are supporting these amazing families in Colombia to transform their dreams into reality!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I think learning to pivot with external factors such as the pandemic, is a true example of resilience. As small business owners, we try different channels to sell our products. Since we started right before the pandemic, we had all of 2020 booked in advance with multiple in-person markets. With the pandemic, we had to pivot and open our website to start selling online, plus attending virtual markets. Once the pandemic started to slow down, we were back in markets. Owning a small business means flexibility, it is a continued pivoting, learning from our experiences, and just to keep going and growing.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

I think the main source of new clients for us is in-person markets/events. It is key to reaching new audiences, promoting our brand name out there, and letting them know that we exist. Even if they don’t buy at that time, they will know our name for a future online order or they will refer us to someone they know that would like to buy our products.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.morphostyleboutique.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/morphostyleboutique/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/morphostyleboutique/
• Other: TikTok @morphostyleboutique

Image Credits
@wonderphotosa and Morpho Style Boutique